Bookslut

February 2004

How Soon is Never? by Marc Spitz

I bought my Best of the Smiths CD without ever having heard a
Smiths song. That was the sort of thing I did in high school, flailing
around in the vast depths of music history, hoping find something
better than Sheryl Crow. Morrissey et al didn't appeal very much at
the time, as grunge had made me hungry for raw guitars, not the slick
licks of New Wave. But I'm listening to that CD again, for the first
time in years, because if Marc Spitz's debut novel How Soon is
Never? did anything, it made me appreciate the Smiths just a little
bit more.

Joe Green, in the early eighties, is a confused, horny teenager who
hangs out in the school art room and listens to the legendary indie
rock station WLIR. A identity-seeking moth, drifting towards a flame
that burns bright with promise, Joe falls hard for the new sound from
Manchester, the perfect soundtrack to his moody adolescence -- an
adolescence fractured after the Smiths shattered apart.

Joe Green, in the late nineties, is a confused, horny music writer who
screws twenty-somethings who like the Smiths for retro's sake. Having
survived Long Island, heroin, and checking bags at a bookstore, he's
now living a music nerd's fantasy -- free CDs, free concerts, and
hanging out with rock stars.

Of course, he's miserable.

When he falls in love with a coworker who shares his exact same
birthday, he seems to find salvation, despite the fact that she has a
boyfriend. But over many, many drinks one night, they discover a
shared love for the Smiths, and a drunken plan emerges -- what if they
could reunite the Smiths for one show? With the enthusiasm of fanboys,
Joe and Miki begin to contact the now separated band members, slowly
working their way up to Morrissey, even as Joe begins to realize that
reuniting the Smiths won't do anything to really fix what broke in him
before.

Overall, this is a great example of how "write what you know" is
consistantly good advice. Spitz's background as a rock journalist for
Spin magazine makes the rock aspects of the story consistantly
non-poser-ish, and the clear first-person voice really sells the
character. Whether Spitz actually survived heroin and a New England
liberal arts college is unknown to me, but Joe Green's journey, from
the panic about turning thirty to the loathing of youngsters
appropriating the music he grew up with, rings true enough to make me
believe anything. Unlike High Fidelity's Rob, Joe isn't
striving for a faint glimpse of rocker cool; he's trying to form an
identity outside of his fanboy idols.

In the end, this book fits like the baggy sweater you loved in high
school, well-worn, comfortable and bound to dredge up more than a few
memories. You don't need to like the Smiths in order to understand
How Soon Is Never?. You don't need to like MUSIC in order to
understand How Soon Is Never. You just need to remember what it
was like to be fifteen, confused, lost, and desperately seeking an
identity of your own, and if you don't remember, Joe Green's
booze-addled journey through high school nostalgia will bring it all
back for you. How Soon is Never doesn't offer happy endings,
but it does offer the solace of pop music -- because no matter how bad
things get, they can't ruin a really great song.

How Soon is Never by Marc Spitz
Three Rivers Press
ISBN: 0609810405
368 Pages